03
Living from the center, aligned with the Source, in accord with our Original Nature, at one with our Energy, Spirit and Vitality, perfectly incarnating Balance and Harmony, Timing and Flow, we are at the top of our game, moving with the current of the Tao through the Eternal Now of Life and Being. If you think money can somehow touch that, you never will.
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02
In order to be seen at all, objective reality has to be interpreted subjectively. We can pretend to be objective about objective reality, but. We can be objective only to the extent that we don't give a damn about the object, and. There is a point at which not giving a damn about the object renders it so meaningless as to effectively disappear it from our field of vision. To be seen at all, an object has to mean something to us, positively or negatively. To truly have no opinion about it is to render it invisible. Then, our relationship with it would be like sitting on an ox looking for an ox. The ox is right there. We are sitting on it. Wondering where it could be, thinking of something else. To see the ox, we have to be with the ox, and care enough about seeing/finding the ox to be able to see it. Caring enough about any object allows us to see aspects of it that would escape us entirely if we cared less about it. Caring too much about any object blurs the lines separating us and it, and we have a hard time distinguishing where we stop and it starts. Enmeshment is the polar extreme to objectivity. Optimal viewing lies in the center of the bell-shaped curve between the two. How we see any object depends on what we have at stake in seeing the object the way we see it-- on what we have at stake in the object being what it is, being the way it is, being what we say it is. When we look at something, we see what makes it meaningful to us. To see anything "as it is" is to spend more time examining it than we are likely going to be willing to spend. We rush past 10,000 things in a day, in a moment, that we cannot be bothered with seeing. We have more important things to do. Yet we think we are firmly grounded in, attached to, "the real world," here and now. We cannot see God-- What Has Always Been Called "God"-- without stopping to look. That Which Has Always Been Called "God"-- the divine, transcendent, ineffable, "essence" on "the other side" of "normal, apparent, reality"-- is always "right there," "right here," with us in every moment. It only takes looking to be able to see. Looking in a way that is devoid of theology, and doctrine, and dogma, and ideas of what we are looking for, that keep us from seeing what is there. To look like that is to become "transparent to transcendence" (Joseph Campbell), and present with what is present with us, and transformed forever by "eternity in a grain of sand" (William Blake).
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01
Ancient peoples all knew that the physical world is upheld and sustained by the invisible world. The physical world is supported and maintained by the metaphysical world. Karma and Grace, Tao, Dharma, Synchronicity, Transcendence, The Ineffable, Flow, Luck, Magic and Black Magic... are aspects of the invisible world experienced within the visible world. Sheldon Kopp was talking about the invisible world when he said, "Some things can be experienced but not understood, and some things can be understood, but not explained." Religion has always stood at the cusp between worlds. Good Religion interprets the invisible world in ways that enable the visible world to live in accord with and in service to the ends of the invisible world. Bad Religion interprets the invisible world in ways that enable the visible world to command and control the invisible world in service to the ends, will and desire of the visible world. Bad Religion thinks in terms of giving in order to get. Good religion thinks in terms of being in order to be-- understanding that there is nothing beyond being at one with the invisible world to want, desire, get, have, own, attain or do. We can understand the worlds of visible and invisible, of physics and metaphysics, in terms of the world of conscious, logical, rational, facts, and the world of unconscious, illogical, irrational, metaphors, and say that human beings are capable of living with a foot in each world. We can move back and forth between the worlds. We can stand apart from both worlds and view them as an optical illusion wherein we see it this way now, and see it that way then. Now we see it this way, now we see it that way. Which way IS is? It is both ways at the same time! And we know there is a "dimension of life that transcends our experience" (Joseph Campbell) of life in the world of normal, physical, reality. But. This knowing unnerves a lot of people. Too many of us "cannot bear to look upon the face of God," and need other people to look for us and tell us what they see and what we must do to be on God's good side, to enjoy God's favor, without paying the price of bearing the pain of God's awful presence. And in that, Bad Religion is born. And you get people who have not had the experience of God talking about God as though they know what they are saying, but they are only saying what they have been told and they are using it to their own advantage. Their experiences of life are experienced without opening them "to the radiance of their divine dimension" (Joseph Campbell)-- and awe, wonder, amazement and "esthetic arrest" (James Joyce) are words that can be said, but do not serve as containers of an experience that is known and understood-- and we are talking about images/experiences that have no affect, no impact, that stir no feeling of recognition and identity within. We are alive but dead to life because we are lacking eyes that can see the things that are "transparent to transcendence" and cannot be shown "the divine dimensions of life that transcends our experiences" (Joseph Campbell). Everything is "right there," waiting to be seen and also seen, known and also known, but. We have to look until we see what is also there on "the other side" of the optical illusion that is our life. No one can give us the will and the courage to look until we see. We have to come up with that on our own.
